Angel
Angel is a fictional megalodon shark that appears in the Meg Saga, written by Steve Alten. She is one of the most prominent characters in the saga, along with Jonas Taylor. Description Arguably the primary antagonist of the series, a female megalodon shark, Angel is first introduced in the ending lines of Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, the only surviving pup of a brood of three, her two siblings having died, one mauled by his own mother, the other killed by a pack of killer whales. Characterized by being a ghostly albino, much like her mother, Angel is made a worldwide sensation after her capture, by being spared death and instead kept in the Tanaka Oceanographic Institute, its man-made lagoon being originally designed to study whales. The second novel, The Trench, reintroduces Angel as a fully grown adult, a monstrous behemoth about seventy feet long and weighing sixty thousand pounds, far too large to be contained in such a restrictive habitat, especially given the fact that additional events, such as annual whale migrations arousing her hunger and the onset of estrus leave her exceptionally ferocious and aggressive. Her escape from said lagoon sets the events of the novel in motion, which would cover her return to her species' ancestral sanctuary, depicted as the Mariana Trench. During the voyage, she herself becomes a mother for the first time, giving birth to two male pups, one of which will become Scarface, the male Megalodon that appeared the most during the third novel, Meg: Primal Waters. In the third book, Angel's role is momentarily shadowed by that of her offspring, though she appears during the climax of the story, mating with another male Megalodon in the Tanaka lagoon before escaping, after being almost suffocated by her mate - which would be later found gruesomely eviscerated. Her next appearance is in the fourth novel, Meg: Hell's Aquarium, where Angel, having gotten pregnant again, gives birth to five Meg females. It is her last appearance, since she is finally killed after an abyssal battle with another thought-to-be extinct predator of the Trench, a gigantic, 122- foot Liopleurodon. She was survived by three of her pups and later by Belle and Lizzy's offspring; Luna and Belladonna, the former of which inadvertently avenges her in Meg: Generations when a recently captured and rampaging Liopleurodon enters her tank, only for her to overpower and devour the much larger creature. While being a central character of the novels and the main force behind many of the most relevant deaths and events that occur in the Meg series, Angel is herself but an animal, and is presented as such, exhibiting behavior loosely akin to that of contemporary sharks, namely, great whites. Indeed, it is those who observe the behemoth who help depict her as almost sentient, though often this is a product of fear or hatred dictated by dire or precarious circumstances. She is something of an archnemesis to protagonist Jonas Taylor, the one responsible of capturing her in the first novel, and the one who saved her from being killed by her mate in the third book. Indeed, on the latter occasion Taylor went so far as to declare something of a kinship between him and the creature, even though in the second book his obsession with the Meg almost had him suffer a mental breakdown. While somehow true to science's current understanding about megalodon, Angel is heavily fictionalized in the novel: she is larger than what is thought to be the average length of this ancient apex predator (probably as a result of high oxygen levels and nutrient rich prey in constant supply), and also, in the fourth novel, it is stated that she evolved to be capable of asexual reproduction similar to some small sharks that are parthenogenic, an unprecedented change thought by the characters to be an innate response of the beast to her species' near extinction. Seven Megalodon sharks were given birth by the albino behemoth. The most prominent was Scarface, a male, which was so named due to his mangled and deformed snout and dorsal fin, both almost beyond recognition due to battle scars. Of the same litter was another male, an unnamed one, which was the father of half the second litter of pups birthed by Angel, and which was mauled to death shortly after mating. Five females succeeded them - three of average length and weight, named Ashley, Angelica, and Mary Kate, and two - the first example of Angel reproducing on her own - much larger and brutal, known as the sisters, Elizabeth (named after Elizabeth Bathory) and Belle (named after Belle Gunness). Angelica was killed by Belle, while Mary Kate died after she was delivered to Dubai to be exposed with Ashley, who survived till the end of the novel, in a massive aquarium. Elizabeth and Belle survived as well, and at the end of the book escaped their confinement. Though both sharks died in a confrontation with the Liopleurodon that killed their mother, Belle and Lizzy mothered Angel's grandchildren, the cousins Luna and Belladonna while they were free. Both were later captured and housed in the Tanaka Oceanographic Institute. Category:Chondrichthyes Category:Sharks Category:Fictional Sharks Category:Deceased Characters Category:Antagonists Category:Individual Sharks Category:Meg Characters Category:Sharks in Novels